Italian Team President Wrote a Letter to Barack Obama About Kobe Bryant

Despite the massive offer for one day of work, the Kobe Bryant-to-Italy thing seems to be coming apart at the seams. But that won’t stop the president of Virtus Bologna from continuing with his public, maniacally hilarious pursuit of the Laker superstar. Here’s the latest, via Ball in Europe: “As the basketball world awaited the well-publicized ultimate conference call between Virtus president Claudio Sabatini and Bryant’s representation, well … nothing much happened, and then happened some more. As it turns out, no call came to Sabatini’s office at all. ‘I hope to hear [from them],’ Sabatini stated in the Italian ‘paper. ‘I do not know how to interpret this episode.’ To tell the truth, BallinEurope isn’t too certain as to how to interpret Sabatini’s next move, which was to write U.S. president Barack Obama. Sabatini and his staff reportedly believed that Obama’s public statement of yesterday regarding the NBA lockout was connected with the movement of NBA players to Europe. ‘To avoid any misunderstanding,’ Sabatini explained to La Gazzetta, ‘I have written to the White House that it is not my intention to cast a shadow on the NBA by stealing their most important player. It is just that I would like to give Bologna and all of Italian basketball the opportunity to enjoy the talent of this world-famous superstar.’ No reply from the president has been received by Sabatini.”